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Police in Ho Chi Minh City are completing procedures for a scrap vendor to claim 5 million yen, or over US$43,000, she found among her scraps, as time is running out for their search of the money’s owner.

Huynh Thi Anh Hong, 36, will be entitled to all the money if no one comes to claim it before the end of April, a local officer who wished to stay unnamed said on Monday.

Since Hong discovered the money in a wooden box on March 21 last year and submitted it to police, legal experts as well as the public have debated over who should get the money – the finder or the state, in case the owner is never found.

A slight switch in technicalities can make a big difference in this case.

Under Vietnamese laws, the finder is eligible to claim all the money, if it is classified as “ownerless.”

But she will only receive a sum equal to ten months of minimum wage and 50 percent the exceeding value if it is categorized as “forgotten” or “abandoned.” The rest goes to the state.

According to the vendor, the box was inside an iron box she bought from an unidentified person for VND100,000 in late 2013.

In a recent comment, Hong told a local newspaper that she hopes to receive all the money so her family is “less miserable” financially.

Previously, in an explanation for her submitting the money to police, the woman, who is married with two children, once said that: “I’d rather return what doesn’t belong to me.”